Thread: Translations for my homework

Hi dudes. I have this giaaaant russian homework to do, the teacher gave us a text (about studying a second language) and wants us to do a million of things about it. Since I want to do the whole thing in russian, I'd like to know how to say the following:

"New words from the text"
"Verbs from the text"

Also, I'm supposed to write a paragraph about studying languages... I'm thinking about naming it "The ideal way of studying Russian" and writing something like...
Personally, I try to learn it the way I learnt my mother language. At first, the basic things to do are listening and speaking, therefore listening to radios on the internet is a very useful tool when it comes to developing those skills. Then the next step is to try to communicate, create your own sentences and to dare to speak, therefore keeping in touch with people from Russia is really good.
Blaablaaa...
But how to say that?
Help, help!

The first rule of studying languages is to know that you do not rely on words you don't know in the first place. Your teacher doesn't expect you to use much more vocabulary and knowledge than he/she's taught you, so talk around it. The verbs for "listen," "speak," and "talk" should be fine here, as well as the words "internet" and "radio" and "Russians." If you don't know these, then a) you are lazy or b) your teacher is wholly incompetent.

I think:
"New words from the text" - Новые слова из текста
"Verbs from the text" - Глаголы из текста

Originally Posted by Barmaley

The first rule of studying languages is to know that you do not rely on words you don't know in the first place. Your teacher doesn't expect you to use much more vocabulary and knowledge than he/she's taught you, so talk around it. The verbs for "listen," "speak," and "talk" should be fine here, as well as the words "internet" and "radio" and "Russians." If you don't know these, then a) you are lazy or b) your teacher is wholly incompetent.

I think:
"New words from the text" - Новые слова из текста
"Verbs from the text" - Глаголы из текста

Thank you!

And btw a) I'm not lazy b) my teacher is kinda crazy, but deffinitely not incompetent.
In my university they expect us to be the самостоятельный kind of student most of the times so that's why I'm here, trying to acquire new vocabulary and stuff, that's why I ask..
Most of the times my problem is not the words themselves, but the whole phrasal structure.
The teacher said "Write a paragraph about blabla" and we haven't even studied all the cases and stuff so it limits me a loooot. It's kinda frustrating when you know the words but don't know how to create the sentence you want. Of course I know those words, but...ahrhrgh

Originally Posted by erika

Originally Posted by Barmaley

The first rule of studying languages is to know that you do not rely on words you don't know in the first place. Your teacher doesn't expect you to use much more vocabulary and knowledge than he/she's taught you, so talk around it. The verbs for "listen," "speak," and "talk" should be fine here, as well as the words "internet" and "radio" and "Russians." If you don't know these, then a) you are lazy or b) your teacher is wholly incompetent.

I think:
"New words from the text" - Новые слова из текста
"Verbs from the text" - Глаголы из текста

Thank you!

And btw a) I'm not lazy b) my teacher is kinda crazy, but deffinitely not incompetent.
In my university they expect us to be the самостоятельный kind of student most of the times so that's why I'm here, trying to acquire new vocabulary and stuff, that's why I ask..
Most of the times my problem is not the words themselves, but the whole phrasal structure.
The teacher said "Write a paragraph about blabla" and we haven't even studied all the cases and stuff so it limits me a loooot. It's kinda frustrating when you know the words but don't know how to create the sentence you want. Of course I know those words, but...ahrhrgh

I understand. The structure sesms really crazy to me too. But you just have to work with what you know. The bottom line is that if your teacher is the least bit fair, he doesn't expect you to write like Pushkin. You will make TONS of mistakes, but you'll be making your OWN mistakes. Frankly, this has been one of the ways I've learned a lot of things -- you tend not to forget things like that, because they stick out like a sore thumb. Much more so than if you just surf the net for suggestions...

I think a big mistake many people studying a foreign language make is they simply try to translate their native language into the second one. This doesn't work. The following links were posted a while ago, and they have a lot of good information regarding how a student should prepare to learn a second language (general info - applies to any language):

http://www.english-learning.co.uk/voc.html
http://www.english-learning.co.uk/vocdb.html

One of the most fundamental, and crucial, ideas it talks about is the definition of language. When you get down to it, language is simply a way to communicate feelings, emotions, wants, etc... Many times, this is hard enough to accurately convey in one's native tongue. When you write something in your native tongue, and then attempt to translate it into a second language, you add a second layer of abstraction - thus further detracting from the original meaning.

I guess my point is along the same lines as Barmaley's, which is that you should use what you currently know to do assignments. That's not to say that you shouldn't look up a word or two, but you are setting yourself up for failure if you write a paragraph using idiomatic and colloquial english and think you can translate it at a beginner's level of Russian.

tdk

I read this phrase in your message and I must say that I have read many times (and I agree with it) that no language must nor can be learnt like the mother language. Nor it is convenient to plan it like this. The age and perhaps the grammatical knowledge the learner can have make it a very different problem. You can learn the grammar of other language in a relative short period of time and that places you in a situation rather better than when you were learning your mother tongue; the different cultural background (then and now) and the immersion (then) make it also different.

Learning a language like one's mother tongue is just the lazy man's way to get out of real study.

Originally Posted by basurero

Learning a language like one's mother tongue is just the lazy man's way to get out of real study.

Having witnessed my own child learning to speak I could not agree less with that statement. Child is curious, full of energy, is working hard and the result is perfect. Mother tongue is learnt by immersion and for an adult immersion is huge stress, how can it be lazy?

I should have been more clear. I'm talking about adults, not children. For children things are much, much different.

the part of the brain that allows kids to magically learn languages shuts down at about age 8-10, someties earlier, sometimes later depending on the individual.
for an adult/anyone learning a language, immersion is usefull but you wont come back speaking on a fully fluent, unconcious native level (that takes a few years of living in the target country)

You know, it takes babies two years to put two words together. Not very impressive!

Originally Posted by challenger

You know, it takes babies two years to put two words together. Not very impressive!

I guess you have no kids. For me it is damn impressive, true miracle.

Originally Posted by Ladeque

Originally Posted by challenger

You know, it takes babies two years to put two words together. Not very impressive!

I guess you have no kids. For me it is damn impressive, true miracle.

He was joking.

But I agree. Learning a language as the mother tongue is the best way to learn a language. But this is impractical, impossible etc. for adults/ people new to the language.

1. The adult's mind is very different from a child's/baby's
2. Baby's have some phonetic memory that allows them to produce any sound from any language but only lasts a certain number of years.
3. If you think about it, it takes a child ages to learn a language. 10 year olds still can't spell and speak properly and use complex vocab.
4. If you say, live in America, the conditions, surroundings etc. are not appropriate for learning, say Russian, like a native speaker (if you don't have Russian parents).

Originally Posted by TATY

Originally Posted by Ladeque

Originally Posted by challenger

You know, it takes babies two years to put two words together. Not very impressive!

I guess you have no kids. For me it is damn impressive, true miracle.

He was joking.

But I agree. Learning a language as the mother tongue is the best way to learn a language. But this is impractical, impossible etc. for adults/ people new to the language.

1. The adult's mind is very different from a child's/baby's
2. Baby's have some phonetic memory that allows them to produce any sound from any language but only lasts a certain number of years.
3. If you think about it, it takes a child ages to learn a language. 10 year olds still can't spell and speak properly and use complex vocab.
4. If you say, live in America, the conditions, surroundings etc. are not appropriate for learning, say Russian, like a native speaker (if you don't have Russian parents).

Yes, I was half-joking, but in seirousness, I agree with Taty's point #3. If for four years almost the only thing I did all day was study Russian, I'm pretty sure I could get further than a Russian 4-year-old (assuming I had proper learning materials).